On May 30, 1998 scrap metal containing radioactive Cesium-137 (Cs-137) was accidentally melted in a furnace at the Acerinox steel mill in Algeciras, Spain. Cs-137 was released from the mill's smokestack, and spread across the western Mediterranean Sea to France and Italy and beyond. The first indication of the release was radiation levels up to 1000 times background reported by Swiss, French, and Italian authorities during the following two weeks. Initially no elevated radiation levels were detected over Spain. A release of hazardous material to the atmosphere is the type of situation the Atmospheric Release Advisory Capability (ARAC) emergency response organization was designed to address. The amount and exact time of the release were unknown, though the incident was thought to have taken place during the last week in May. Using air concentration measurements supplied by colleagues of ARAC in Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Russia and the European Union, ARAC meteorologists estimated the magnitude and timing of the release (Vogt, 1999). Correctly locating the downwind footprint is the most important goal of emergency response modeling. In this study, we compare predicted results for the Algeciras event based on four wind data sources: (1) US Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction …

Photograph used for a newspaper owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company. Caption: "Bob Colon, Daily Oklahoman sports editor."

Where there is a significant actuarial basis for decision making (e.g., the occurrence of fires in single-family dwellings), there is little incentive for formal risk management. Formal risk assessments are most useful in those cases where the value of the structure is high, many people may be affected, the societal perception of risk is high, consequences of a mishap would be severe, and the actuarial uncertainty is large. For these cases, there is little opportunity to obtain the necessary experiential data to make informed decisions, and the consequences in terms of money, lives, and societal confidence are severe enough to warrant a formal risk assessment. Other important factors include the symbolic value of the structure and vulnerability to single point failures. It is unlikely that formal risk management and assessment practices will or should replace the proven institutions of building codes and engineering practices. Nevertheless, formal risk assessment can provide valuable insights into the hazards threatening high-value and high-risk (perceived or actual) buildings and structures, which can in turn be translated into improved public health, safety, and security. The key is to choose and apply the right assessment tool to match the structure in question. Design-for-reliability concepts can be applied …

Daily newspaper from Perry, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The material of choice for a solid oxide fuel cell cathode based on a yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte is doped lanthanum manganite, (La, Sr)MnO{sub 3}. It excels at many of the attributes necessary for a system to work at the required operating temperature and is flexible enough to allow for materials optimization. Although strontium-doping increases the electronic conductivity of the material, the ionic conductivity of the material remains negligible under operating conditions. Studies have shown that the internal equilibrium of the material heavily favors oxidation of the manganese and rather than the loss of lattice oxygen as a charge compensation mechanism. This lack of oxygen vacancies in the structure retards the ability of the material to conduct oxygen ions; thus the optimized system requires a large number of engineered triple point boundary locations to work efficiently. We have successfully doped the host LSM lattice to alter the interred equilibrium of the material to increase its ionic conductivity and thus lower the cathodic overpotential of the system. Our presentation will discuss these new materials, the results of cell tests, and a number of characterization experiments performed.

We report on studies of the top quark, beyond the measurements of its mass and produciton cross section, which have been carried out recently by the CDF and D0 collaborations, based on {approximately}110{+-}6 pb{sup -1} of proton-antiproton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV. Each experiment has searched for t{yields}H{sup +}b decays and, from the lack of observable signal, excluded previously unexplored regions of the [M{sub H+},tan{beta}] parameter space. D0 has studied the correlation between the spin states of pair-produced top quarks, and CDF has studied the helicity of the W bosons produced in the decay of top quarks. Within large statistical uncertainties, both measurements agree with predictions of the standard model.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Newsletter of Congregation Beth Yeshurun in Houston, including news and events, upcoming services, member announcements, editorials, and other information of interest to congregants.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

We present preliminary results of a new measurement of the b quark fragmentation function in Z{sup 0} decays using a novel kinematic B hadron energy reconstruction technique. The measurement is performed using 150,000 hadronic Z{sup 0} events recorded in the SLD experiment at SLAC between 1996 and 1997. The small and stable SLC beam spot and the CCD-based vertex detector are used to reconstruct topological B-decay vertices with high efficiency and purity, and to provide precise measurements of the kinematic quantities used in this technique. We measure the B energy with good efficiency and resolution over the full kinematic range. We compare the scale B hadron energy distribution with several functional forms of the B hadron energy distribution and predictions of several models of b quark fragmentation. Several functions including JETSET + Peterson are excluded by the data. The average scaled energy of the weakly decaying B hadron is measured to be x{sub B} = 0.719 {+-} 0.005 (stat) {+-} 0.007 (syst) {+-} 0.001 (model) (preliminary).

The solidification behavior and resultant solidification cracking susceptibility of autogenous gas tungsten arc fusion welds in alloy HR-160 was investigated by Varestraint testing, differential thermal analysis, and various microstructural characterization techniques. The alloy exhibited a liquidus temperature of 1387 {deg}C and initiated solidification by a primary L - {gamma} reaction in which Ni, Si, and Ti segregated to the interdendritic liquid and Co segregated to the {gamma} dendrite cores. Chromium exhibited no preference for segregation to the solid or liquid phase during solidification. Solidification terminated at {approx} 1162 {deg}C by a eutectic-type L - [{gamma}+ (Ni,Co){sub 16}(Ti,Cr){sub 6}Si{sub 7}] reaction. The (Ni,Co){sub 16}(Ti,Cr){sub 6}Si{sub 7} phase is found to be analogous to the G phase which forms in the Ni-Ti-Si and Co-Ti-Si ternary systems, and similarities are found to exist between the solidification behavior of this commercial multicomponent alloy and the simple Ni-Si and Ni-Ti binary systems. Reasonable agreement is obtained between the calculated and measured volume percent of the [{gamma} +(Ni,Co){sub l6}(Ti,Cr){sub 6}Si{sub 7}] eutectic-typr constituent with the Scheil equation using experimentally determined k values for Si and Ti from electron microprobe data. The alloy exhibited a very high susceptibility to solidification cracking in the Varestraint test. This is …

The Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) at Argonne National Laboratory-West (ANL-W) was shutdown in September, 1994. This sodium cooled reactor had been in service since 1964, and by the US Department of Energy (DOE) mandate, was to be placed in an industrially and radiologically safe condition for ultimate decommissioning. The deactivation of a liquid metal reactor presents unique concerns. The first major task associated with the project was the removal of all fueled assemblies. In addition, sodium must be drained from systems and processed for ultimate disposal. Residual quantities of sodium remaining in systems must be deactivated or inerted to preclude future hazards associated with pyrophoricity and generation of potentially explosive hydrogen gas. A Sodium Process Facility (SPF) was designed and constructed to react the elemental sodium from the EBR-II primary and secondary systems to sodium hydroxide for disposal. This facility has a design capacity to allow the reaction of the complete inventory of sodium at ANL-W in less than two years. Additional quantities of sodium from the Fermi-1 reactor are also being treated at the SPF.

The off-shell aspects of the one-pion-exchange potential (OPEP) are discussed. Relativistic Hamiltonians containing relativistic kinetic energy, relativistic OPEP with various off-shell behaviors and Argonne v{sub 18} short-range parameterization are used to study the deuteron properties. The OPEP off-shell behaviors depend on whether a pseudovector or pseudoscalar pion-nucleon coupling is used and are characterized by a parameter {mu}. The authors study potentials having {mu} = {minus}1, 0 and +1 and they find that they are nearly unitarily equivalent. They also find that a nonrelativistic Hamiltonian containing local potentials and nonrelativistic kinetic energy provides a good approximation to a Hamiltonian containing a relativistic OPEP based on pseudovector pion-nucleon coupling and relativistic kinetic energy.

The Hydro-Balanced Stuffing Box is a seal assembly for polished rod pumping installations commonly used in oil and gas pumping well installations to contain produced well fluids. The improved stuffing box was developed and patented by Harold H. Palmour of The Palmour Group of Livingston, TX. The stuffing box is designed to reduce the incidence of seal leakage and to utilize an environmentally safe fluid, so that if there is any leakage, environmental damage is reduced or eliminated. The unit was tested on two wells at the Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center. During the test period, the performance of the stuffing box was measured by monitoring the pressure on the tubing and the inner chamber with a Barton Two-pen recorder. The amount of safe fluid consumed, fluid leakage at the top of the stuffing box, pressure supplied from the nitrogen bottle, ambient temperature, and polish rod temperature was recorded. The stuffing box is capable of providing a better seal between well fluids an d the environment than conventional stuffing boxes. It allows the polished rod to operate cooler and with lubrication, extending the life of the packing elements, and reducing the amount of attention required to prevent leakage.

The body of this report is contained in two appendicies that deal with time-resolved spectroscopic analysis of microballoon implosions. The first paper introduces the experimental observation of plasma-induced line shifts in recent implosion experiments together with our theoretical analysis. These observations provide a new parameter with which to diagnose very dense laser-produced plasmas. It also indicates that at even higher densities shift-effects can be expected to be more prominent. The second paper represents an application of our analytical tools to the analysis of mix experiments. Interesting results are discussed.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

How to ensure the appropriate performance of our built environment in the face of normal conditions, natural hazards, and malevolent threats is an issue of emerging national and international importance. As the world population increases, new construction must be increasingly cost effective and at the same time increasingly secure, safe, and durable. As the existing infrastructure ages, materials and techniques for retrofitting must be developed in parallel with improvements in design, engineering, and building codes for new construction. Both new and renovated structures are more often being subjected to the scrutiny of risk analysis. An international conference, "Assuring the Performance of Buildings and Infrastructures," was held in May 1997 to address some of these issues. The conference was co-sponsored by the Architectural Engineering Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Institute of Architects, and Sandia National Laboratories and convened in Albuquerque, NM. Many of the papers presented at the conference are found within this issue of Techno20~. This paper presents some of the major conference themes and summarizes discussions not found in the other papers.

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Sulphur Springs, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The Environmental Analysis Section (EAS) of the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) conducted a quarterly monitoring program of the Fourmile Branch (FMB) stream and its associated seepline located down gradient from the F- and H-Area Seepage Basins from May 1992 to May 2995. The overall summary (1989-1998) indicates that the tritium plumes are surfacing in somewhat localized areas along the F-Area and 643-E seeplines.

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Weekly newspaper from Grandview, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Interview with Eugene L. Crumling, bartender and former professional ballplayer. The interview includes Crumling's personal experiences about being a professional baseball player in the U.S. during World War II. Crumling talks about his semi-pro baseball career in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the origin of his nickname, signing his first professional contract, life in the minor leagues during wartime, his draft classification as 4-F, his employment in defense-related work during the off-seasons, contrasts between life in the minors and life in the majors, individual Cardinals players, his first game and his first, and only, hit in the majors, the remainder of his minor league career, and his personal thoughts about the reserve clause, player strikes, modern-day salaries, and expansion.